


Hell Is Real

by Pey119



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - No Demigods (Percy Jackson), Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Based on a Tumblr Post, Complete, Inspired By Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 15:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 6,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19396984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pey119/pseuds/Pey119
Summary: The crows gather on the trees and buildings. You start counting, 1, 2, 3, 4, but there are too many to count. They gather as one, they fly off as one. That is why they will survive and you will not. Their feathers block out the light.XXXXXPlots from tumblr posts





	1. Chapter 1

It was a strange town with a strange name, a name unable to be pronounced by anyone outside. But they all knew how to pronounce it, as if their tongues held the secret formula hidden deep within their chromosones, within the water that ran through their cells. Even though most days they simply couldn't remember what it was called.

Warnings, warnings everywhere that weren't spoken and weren't looked upon. Don't go out at night, don't look out your windows. Don't look them in the eye: they don't like that, they see it as a sign of disrespect. Don't try getting out, don't try driving off. You'll end up right back here, right back at the welcome sign that never seemed to get new costumers.

The biggest unspoken, the one feared by many. You shouldn't swim in Lake Erie, you shouldn't touch its green waters and unknown depths. Percy had seen people, all the same, far away in the water. Sometimes he thought other people saw, too, but it remained unspoken.

Something was out there. Something...

It was a strange town with a strange name.


	2. Chapter 2

The mist fell over the water, covered the islands within swimming distance. Trains were heard, birds were heard, the waves crashing weren't. The lake was ignored, the lake was feared, the lake was something shunned away from society, hidden deep in the area of the untouchables.

Percy stood at the water's edge, stood there every morning and looked out into that water. He could see them, the shapes moving. He could see their gray silhouettes and their same, dead movements. They were always the same.

Nobody spoke about them, nobody laid their eyes on the water. They got in the same boats, sailed the same waves, never paid what was underneath any mind. They were scared, scared in the deepest parts of their soul. But you need to know something exists to be afraid of it.

Percy stuck his bare foot out, touched the green water with his big toe. The wind stopped the fog deepened, his heart rate intensified.

He took his foot back, put his shoes back on, walked off to school. Maybe another day, maybe another day...


	3. Chapter 3

The school was always the same. Beaten down walls, graffiti-filled bathrooms, the smell of textbooks heavy in the air. Half his class was missing, but nobody questioned why. The teacher didn't do roll call.

As the teacher taught the same power point, the same material they learned every day, the same warnings, Percy stared out that window and longed for that lake, for once last chance to see it. He'd come back, but there was always a fear that he wouldn't. Sometimes people just disappeared.

At least a mile away, Percy could still hear those waves hitting the beach, still hear the mist roll in. He could still hear the old birds cry, still hear the flutter of wings and their feathers as they fell, fell and disappeared beneath the waves.

That lake haunted him.

He looked around, looked around at the ones that remained. One boy sat beside him, one boy that everyone somehow knew the name of. Leo Valdez. His hands were covered in grease, his eyes alight with fire. The steel mills have been closed since before they were born.

Percy had watched Leo before, wondered about this odd boy. Nobody else seemed to. They noticed the grease on his hands. They ignored it. They noticed the spark in his eyes, noticed the hint of insanity. Nobody spoke of it.

The school was always the same. Beaten down walls, graffiti-filled bathrooms, the smell of textbooks heavy in the air. Half his class was missing, but nobody questioned why. The teacher didn't do roll call.


	4. Chapter 4

Leo walked home, walked far away from that school. He took the long way, far from the fields. He took the short way, close to the crumbling buildings. Every way led home. None led out.

He took the way, there was never another way for him, past the steel mills. Every road he took, ever path he walked, he always ended up passing those mills. Keep telling yourself that they're closed, the teacher's words sounded in his ears. They're closed, they're closed, they're closed. They've been closed since before he was born.

As he walked, he could hear the clanging of ancient machinery and feel his scalp tingle with unseen eyes. The eyes in those mills, watching him, waiting for tomorrow when he'd come back, waiting for tonight when he'd fall asleep.

He took a shower when he got home, touched water that was always the same. The grease washed off for the time being.

That night, he dreamed about white hot sparks and the sounds of the machinery, echoing through the night. He woke up with black grease staining his hands.

The steel mills have been closed since before he was born.


	5. Chapter 5

Leo woke up, took a shower, the same water over his tired bones. The water was murky, the water wasn't clean.

The grease didn't come off, this time.

He walked to school, tried walking through town. He still passed those mills, still heard the noises, still smelled the smell. His eyes sparked with the desire to work there, his hands ached for more grease.

He didn't remind himself that they had been closed.

After the mills, he looked back as if he longed for them, longed to see them again. They weren't in sight.

When he couldn't hear the mills, he heard Them, the sounds that came sometimes when you were alone. Their screeches, Their cries. They looked like birds.

He hoped they were birds.

The school was always the same. Beaten down walls, graffiti filled bathrooms, the smell of textbooks heavy in the air. He got to first period to find that it hadn't changed, but it had. A third of his class was missing, but nobody questioned why. The teacher didn't do roll call.

Percy Jackson sat beside him. The boy who smelled the lake. The boy that had been pulled from the lake before. If asked, he never remembered. He was never the same.

To his right, Nico di Angelo sat with his dead and cold, his eyes that once held so much light. He had been a happy boy, had been the happiest in the town. Then they found him. They found him in those mines up north, found him staring at that trickle of water down the wall.

He had changed, more than Percy. He didn't remember his childhood.

Leo looked to the front, looked to the teacher. The teacher, heavy with a burden unknown. His tired eyes screamed to be listened, screamed to warn his students. He wanted them to live, he wanted them not to disappear.

Nobody listened.


	6. Chapter 6

School let out, every day, at three. There was no bell, no clocks, but everyone knew to go. Nobody questioned it.

Nico left the building, left the decaying walls, left in a grimace of fear that he'd never return. Some people never did. They wanted to know about the outside world, they wanted to know how things worked. They questioned the system.

They just disappeared.

His mother had gotten in her car, swore to come back when she found the next town. She never did.

His sister visited the lake with Percy Jackson one day. They pulled Percy out but never found Bianca.

Percy didn't remember her name.

There were mines up north, mines that always called his name. He walked there every day, walked to meet the ones inside. He never saw them, but he heard them breathing.

Sacrifices, sacrifices, they wanted more sacrifices.

The water that dripped down the wall was as old as the earth, as old as anything to ever exist. It dripped, dripped into nothingness. He never touched it.

The mines up north had once been full of riches. Now, the townsfolk said they were empty. But Nico knew they weren't. No, no more riches, but they weren't empty. Some days, he knew that people agreed. They were just scared.

They hoped the mines were empty.

The sun set, he hurried home. Get home before 2, get home before 2, get home before 2.

What happened at 2?

He smelled like the mines, smelled like the earth that they were created from. His pants were full of dirt, his white shirt would never be cleaned. He went home, fell asleep to the smell of dirt.

In his dreams, he saw why the mines were "empty". He saw why people were afraid. When he woke up, he couldn't remember why. Did he dream? The safe answer was no.

His mother disappeared, his sister disappeared. His dad? They found his body, void of life, sitting in those mines. They went to get help, came back, the body was gone.

Another of the missing.


	7. Chapter 7

Nico woke up the next morning, heard the spirits whispering. They were angry, so angry.

He decided not to go to the mines that day.

He went to school, smelled like dirt, everyone stayed away from him. They stared at him as if they knew what he had done, knew the spirits he had never seen.

He stayed far away from the teenagers that looked alike, far away from the ones with the same names. They all looked alike.

Except for a select few.

Leo Valdez sat on his left. He smelled like fire, looked like a steelworker. The steel mills had been closed for years.

Percy Jackson was a couple desks over, his eyes staring out the window at a lake that wasn't in sight. He stared, he sighed, he smelled like the green lake itself.

Nico hated him. Hated that Percy didn't remember.

In front of Nico, a girl sat with her fingers tapping the desk and her golden eyes unnerving. The Planter, they called her. The Planter. They never called her Hazel anymore.  
Her fingertips were stained red, her nails were painted rust. She smelled like iron, looked like a hazard.

Nico never saw her outside of school.

The school was always the same. Beaten down walls, graffiti filled bathrooms, the smell of textbooks heavy in the air. Half his class was missing, but nobody questioned why. The teacher didn't do roll call.


	8. Chapter 8

They had a test that day, in second period. They never moved classrooms, but the periods changed. Percy Jackson never looked away from the window. Leo Valdez played with matches under his desk. The Planter had her binder out, pages and pages of flowers Nico had never heard of.

The test. In the end, they were told to seal the question booklet. The white labels don't fit properly in the designated sections. None of this fits. They weren't allowed to discuss the questions. They no longer exist. They never existed. Ethan tried to fight back. They drag him away. Ethan never existed either.

The test was over. Nico didn't remember the questions, didn't remember what it was on. Their teacher looked more weary than usual. When all the tests were collected, they were told to get their textbooks out. Textbooks that Nico could never quite read. A different language, a language never explained. The other kids could read it.

Except for the few that were different. The different ones, the different ones...

They wouldn't last long.

They read, they read. They didn't notice the scream down the hall, the scream that came every day. Nico looked up, The Planter looked up, all the differents looked up. The teacher looked down at them in pity, shook his head, pointed to the book.

The pages they couldn't read.

Nico couldn't read, couldn't stand to stare at the pages. He leaned back in his seat, leaned back and looked at the ceiling above him. There's always a small patch of mold up there.

Always.

Above all his desks, school and home. He scraped off the one at home one night, and found that it had tripled in size everywhere else the next day.

The mold. It wasn't above anyone else's desk.

Nico stared at the mold, Percy stared at the lake, Leo stared at his greasy hands. Hazel stared at her binder, the teacher stared at his students. Staring, staring, staring...


	9. Chapter 9

Hazel walked out of the school, her binder kept close to her. The streets were deserted, nobody else seemed to leave school. She could feel the earth shake, feel a rumble beneath her feet.

The grass in front of her house was greener than the others. The grass in her backyard was even greener. When she dug, she found out why.

Blood makes the grass grow a little greener.

As she dug, dug in the backyard and the area around it, she found things she never fully understood, never understood why they were down there. Roots but no plants, stones but no building, pages but no books. Pages in a different language.

The skulls she dug up didn't look like any animals, didn't look like any humans. The skulls were what stumped her the most, but the blood had to come from somewhere, right?

The apple trees in the back bloomed despite the season. The apples were the color of blood, they smelled like iron, everything smelled like iron. When she picked the apples, the dark red liquid would drip onto her hand. It smelled like iron, tasted like iron.

She ate one every day. Maybe it was just sap. Hopefully...

Hazel planted what she could, planted in this soil made of the blood of something. She planted her apple trees, planted flowers, planted seeds. Everything tasted like blood when it came up. When she sold the fruit, nobody else seemed to notice. The red liquid filled their mouths, but all they said was "sweet, not bitter". They didn't taste the iron.

She brought an apple to school one day, brought an apple for lunch. Leo didn't have a lunch, so she handed it over. She could just get more at home. He tasted it, he smelled the iron, his eyes widened with that internal spark.

"Hazel, where'd you get this?" he'd ask, a fake smile plastered on his face. He was scared.

And he should have been.

"I grow apple trees," she replied. "I've been growing apple trees for...for...for a long time... I'm not sure for how long..."

She could never remember when she started, could never remember where her family went. Did she ever even have one?


	10. Chapter 10

Percy asked around, finally started asking around. He asked why they don't swim in the lakes, why nobody touches Lake Erie. They always muttered something about the cleanliness or the fish. None met his eyes.

It was the weekend. Everyone he passed, everyone he saw, they all gave him the same answer. When did everyone become the same?

Winter was coming, winter was coming... Why did it bring fear? He heard the sky was blue, but all he ever saw was gray. He couldn't remember seeing anything else. Percy had never seen sunlight in his short, pitiful life. He may die without ever seeing light. Part of him thinks this might be a blessing. You fear what you do not know. You fear everything.

As he made his way to the lake, the gray clouds sunk closer to the earth and the fog seemed to grow thicker. The lake called for him, screamed for him, spoke to him silently.

The beaches of Lake Erie aren't made of sand. He wasn't sure what they were made of, but there's teeth. And fingernails. And sharp objects that embedded themselves in his bare feet and never came out. He stepped on them, used to them, didn't question the pain. Maybe it was there for a reason, maybe he bled there for a reason.

That's what people would tell him, if they ever found him.

The wind started to blow, low and growling. It moved across the waters, brought the fog with it. When he listened closely, he could hear the voices of the ones he saw across the waters, of the waters that forever seemed to yearn for him.

But the waters were freezing, and the air was getting colder. When he dipped a toe into the water, he felt as if every bone in his body decided to freeze at once. He stood there, unable to move, unable to do anything but stare out in front of him.

Eventually, Monday came. He took his foot back, he walked off to school, he wondered how days went by so fast.

The school was the same. Barely anybody was in class. Percy watched the lake and Leo watched his hands, and Nico tried to figure out why the spirits were so angry. Hazel, Hazel yearned for different plants to grow. She was getting sick of apples.

In math, they learned about imaginary numbers. Their teacher shook his head, sighed in sadness whenever he heard the word "imaginary". Luke spoke out, said the words didn't make sense. In a minute, he got a call slip for the office. He never came back, he never existed. He had also become imaginary.

Jason Grace sat on Hazel's right, on the right of The Planter. Percy stared at the lake, Leo stared at his hands, Nico stared at the ceiling. Jason stared out the left side of windows, stared at that fog that came rolling in. There had been stories of Jason, stories of the camping trip he had taken long ago. As Nico's neighbor, Nico watched him frequently from the safety of his home. Watched him, watched him walk on the fog.

Strange, so strange, all so strange.


	11. Chapter 11

Jason saw the fog come in, saw it with a hint of happiness and curiosity in his soul. He walked on it that night, walked on it until midnight. Then he went indoors, closed the windows, closed the blinds. He didn't want to see outside in the dark at 2. Nobody did, nobody spoke of it. Just don't look out at 2.

One night the road popped one of his tires as he made his way past the soy fields. He did not leave the car. He did not check the damage. He called Percy for aid, and it was only when there were at least four people, all armed with heavy flashlights, that he left the car. Something is chanting in a language he didn't know. The eyes that watch from the soy fields do not blink.

They don't fix his car. It's too far gone, it's too dark, it's too close to those fields. Percy gives him a ride home, rushes over the speed limit. It was nearing 2.

The next morning, his car wasn't there. Nothing left to reveal that it had once existed. In a week, he remembered only ever having walked to school. He never owned a car, nobody owned a car.

As he walked, he heard Them. Shrieking overhead, looking for their next meal. They looked like birds. But they never landed. One day he brought his binoculars, looked up into that sky.

He ditched the binoculars on the side of the road and rushed home. They weren't birds. They never were.

There were some birds, however. There were more crows than humans. Do not feed them, your parents taught you. What happened to those who did not obey the rule? And why no one has ever seen the young ones? Where did they come from? Don't ask. Keep going. Don't ask.

If you look very closely, the crows are all covered with blood.

At night, Jason's dreams leaked into the room around him. He remembered that camping trip, but only at night. The morning fog covered the campsite. When it dissipated, his friend's tent was missing. How many went on that camping trip? It was always one, wasn't it?... Wasn't it?

In the mornings, he would never remember. He walked on that fog, went to school, tried not to become just like the others. It was disturbing to see that their town was screwed, but at least he was different. At least he could see it. The others...they'd all die there, one day. Someday soon. The circles under their eyes will darken. They'll bleed gray.

And then, someday, they'll be one of the missing. Where they went, nobody was sure. But there was always someone new missing.


	12. Chapter 12

The missing, the missing. There were so many missing.

Maria di Angelo had been driving for hours. Surely she'd be out of state lines by now. But the scenery hasn't changed at all, and the sky has long turned dark. She couldn't remember the last town she went through.

She saw a sign giving the distance to the next town. It's an hour away. She drove on, and twenty minutes later, she saw another sign giving the distance to that town. It is still an hour away. It has been an hour away for as long as she can remember

Thalia Grace stood waiting for the train. The next train will arrive in 5 minutes. Days have passed; winter is setting in. The next train will arrive in 5 minutes. It will arrive in 5 minutes...

Five minutes goes on forever, and forever and forever. What even were minutes anymore?

The lake bores holes through cliffs, crushes stones beneath its waves. It will erode you, too, given enough time. It eroded Bianca, it eroded others. It almost got Percy Jackson.

Don't swim in Lake Erie. Don't swim in Lake Erie. Don't swim in Lake Erie. Don't swim in Lake Erie.  
Don't

Swim

In

Lake

Erie

Travis Stoll had sat by the cornfields, had made the mistake of standing still. A small boy appears in the cornfields around him. Travis asked him where he came from. The boy says nothing, but reaches for Travis' hand. He presses his finger into his palm. Travis is never seen again.

The corn gets taller every year. And every year, the screams coming from the fields get louder.

Too many people went missing by those fields.

Corn. Corn corn corn. corncorncorncorncorncorncorncorn. The Ten Commandments. corn. death. Hell is real.

Don't forget, Hell is real.


	13. Chapter 13

The school was always the same. Beaten down walls, graffiti-filled bathrooms, the smell of textbooks heavy in the air. All the class was missing besides the differents. They all questioned why. The teacher didn't teach. He had known for awhile that it was hopeless.

There were new sets of graffiti on the classroom walls. "YOU HAVE CHANGED" the graffiti accuses, white block letters on blood-red bricks. How did they know?

The walks to the coal mines were almost too cold, the sittings by the lake were longer each time. The mills were louder, the fog was thicker. When were things ever going to change?

The time passes so quickly yet so slowly. It's been a week, it's been months, it's been years. Nobody ages. The children don't grow up. You start forgetting everything about your life before. You live here. You've always lived here.

Nobody ages. nobody ages. nobody ages. What year is it?

They had long since forgotten. The date wasn't on the chalkboard, they didn't date their papers. There was no date. There was no year. Nothing, nothing.

Nothing.

They have been here for a couple of weeks, or maybe for decades. nothing changes. They can't die. They can't die. They can't die.

There is a daycare down the road from the school. The children are shouting. The children never arrive or leave, but sometimes they are quieter. The shouting leaks through the open windows, disrupts Percy's vision of the lake, disrupts the fire in Leo's soul. It unnerves them, unnerves their teacher. The teacher simply says "Turn the page".

They still can't read the textbook, but they turn the page anyways. They've been turning pages all day.

Winter, you pray for summer. Every winter is colder than the last. There is no remembrance of being warm. The snow is 4 feet deep and the trek home from school takes the life from your bones. The winter air sucks the life from you. Your hands are never warm. You can feel the bones in yours legs grind together as you flee for shelter. It's physically impossible to put on more layers.

As Nico walked home, he noticed the Christmas decorations up. Percy noticed, Leo noticed, they all noticed. But they didn't speak, they didn't notice each other. The neighbors' houses are brightly lit enough to be seen from space. One of them sets up a vast inflatable Santa. They can hear the Santa laughing when they pass by, and remember that Santa is an anagram of Satan.

Nico walked past the mines again, for the first time in weeks. He could still hear canaries deep inside chittering and chattering. When he looked inside, he saw nothing but black coated feathers. Maybe another day.

Percy walked home, a different path from Nico and the mines, a different path from Leo and the mills. He walked by the fishermen, the ones that never dared touch the water with their bare skin. They went out with blindfolds, they came back with what they called fish. Sometimes they don't go back on the water for a long time afterward. When Percy asked, they don't say a word. They never say a word. Their blindfolds cover their eyes. Maybe they never had eyes.

That night, Percy makes a promise. As soon as that lake freezes, he'll cross it. He'll cross it this winter.


	14. Chapter 14

They don't believe in gods here, but there's something in these waters, lurking deep in the woods, just visible through the mist that creeps in from the lake. Something's out there, and it's not divine, but it sure as hell ain't human, either.

Hell, Hell, maybe they were in Hell.

On the way to the lake, Percy passed through the park. Passed through the gray they called green, passed through the gray they called red. Winter is gray here. It lasts so long that you forget about color.

"Do you remember blue skies?" the man asked last week. He never existed.

Old men are drinking on a bench in the park. They've been there for a while. They've been there his whole life. They stare at him with hungry eyes, eyes that didn't hold a soul.

There is only one jogger in the park. He is seen everywhere, and each time he looks different. He will never stop running.

Maybe that was his Hell.

The park opened up to the road, the road that led right down to the lake and its hazardous shore. They're always trying to fill the potholes and the cracks in the sidewalks. It's from the ice, they say. Come morning, the holes always return. bigger. deeper.

Percy makes sure to stay far away from them.

Lake Erie has frozen over. Percy kept his shoes on, stepped out onto the ice, confident that he wouldn't fall through. There was too much ice, so dense. Under it, he saw something, a shadow of something, passing by. It is big, too big to be anything that belongs in a river. Maybe it was the gray people. Maybe it was Bianca. Maybe it was himself.  
He turned around. The shadow follows him back to the shore.

He got home, he got to the place he always assumed as home. He lived alone besides the cat, the cat that liked to roam freely.

The cat has caught something and dropped it on the backstep, proud and haughty. Percy thanked her. He has no idea what she caught. He never wants to know what it is.  
That night he vomited brine and seaweed. The cat was scratching at the door. Percy got up to let her in, but the hallway was empty. He went back to bed. Vomited again.

The cat is scratching at the window. He wants to get up, but notices the cat sleeping in the bed with him. There are two scratching sounds now.

There are always scratching sounds. The nights are never quiet.


	15. Chapter 15

The winter kept people in. Kept them indoors, whether it was school or home or work. Did anyone work? Percy was never sure.

They stuck around in the cafeteria after school was over, fearful of the outdoors. They knew they had to leave before sundown, but nobody was gung-ho about going. After being this cold, you'd never be warm again. The winter took its victims every day.

They walked home together. They finally noticed each other. They passed the mills, they all heard the machinery. Leo almost went in, but they held him back. They saved him from becoming one of the missing.

The church on the corner has been closed for fourteen years. Every Sunday at noon they hear church bells. No one seems surprised. As they walk past it, they feel eyes bearing into their souls. Had God forsaken them, or were they somewhere He couldn't reach?

They walked past the path leading up north, leading to the mines. They kept an eye on Nico, but he kept walking. "The spirits are angry today," he murmured. "They've been angry all winter."

They didn't question him. They kept walking. If they stopped, winter would eat them alive.

The cemetery came next. Nobody had ever seen it but Nico looked at home, walked in its gates and promised it was a shortcut. There's a statue in the cemetery. It's old, so old, and nobody can quite tell what it used to be. No moss or ivy grows on the stone. They watch it in the corner of their eyes, they don't want it to catch them off guard.

Fear begins with knowing something exists. What sparked this fear deep in their hearts?

They emerged by the lake. They all stopped. They all looked at Percy. Leo was the first to speak. "They've said you've tried walking across it. Is that true?"

Percy shrugged his shoulders. "Only like ten steps. They were following me."

"What if we all go together?" Leo asked. "I see them, too."

The wind stopped. Nothing stirred. Two people, two people speaking of the unspeakable, two people questioning the system together. There was no turning back.

They heard knocking from under the ice. Percy smiles, and he does not know why. "Altogether, we can try. Maybe the gray people can help us."

The knocking came again, Percy stepped foot on the ice. One by one, they followed him. The cold had gotten worse, but Leo still smelt of ash and smoke. Nico's boots almost broke through the ice, Hazel looked around for any soil. Before they knew it, they couldn't see anything on either side.

"Told you," Nico whispered. "The spirits are angry today."


	16. Chapter 16

They walk, they smell soot and ash, they smell dirt and plants. After a couple hours, they think that maybe they should have stayed home. Maybe they had been in Heaven, maybe this was Hell.

Once they did, they saw shore. They ran, ran and found that they were back where they started. The lake wasn't frozen, summer was light in the air.

Summer was light until it got too thick to breathe. Foggy piers. Something large and unknown washing up onto shore. The end of the beach disappearing into the storm. The unknowns disappeared into it with one last tide of gray.

Percy asked them. By June, nobody remembered their trip. Nobody remembered... Nobody remembered...

Summer was too thick to breathe, was too heavy to stand up in. Shoes wash up with the tide every few days or so. They thought a landfill was eroding somewhere at first, maybe kids are getting more careless of the cost of nikes, then some emerged with a foot still in them, detached at the ankle. Those bones are weak, Nico insisted, and the current will break them right off the body. Even if you divide the number of shoes by two, that's still a lot of bodies.

After a week of this came more. The water is thick and briney. There is a strange smell and they start to notice pieces of flesh mixed among the seaweed and driftwood. The heat amplifies the smell. By mid-July, Percy couldn't stand to go to the lake anymore. No one could, even the fishermen. What they called fish stayed in the markets.

Piper's dad had a car that they'd take on long drives around the town when the heat became unbearable and the cornfields became deadly. One house they drive by always smells of smoke and looks quaint through the trees. In the summer it's a bonfire and in the fall it is burning leaves. The air is clouded with it. You see the burning in the woods. What is burning? Why is it always burning? They wonder if they need help.

They drive and drive, sometimes to a party full of ashen faces that hold back dead souls. Summer nights are full of bonfires and laughing and even though the fire is blazing, the light of it doesn't reach very far. Shouldn't it reach further? Shouldn't you be able to see everyone's faces clearly? They haven't had anything to drink. The fire doesn't feel warm at all.

Percy gets home and goes to his room but can't sleep. He hears screams in the heavy heat of summer nights. He has a memory of being told that it was just the wind, but he doesn't believe so. There hasn't been wind in months.

Once he finally falls asleep he dreams of the lake and can smell what kept him away. He wakes up vomiting brine and seaweed.


	17. Chapter 17

In the summer, lights blink from the forest. Lock your doors. Those aren't fireflies. You don't want to know what they are.

But curiosity always got the better of Percy.

The sidewalks don't start or end right. There are cracks in them, but nothing grows. Sometimes, there are ants. Ants that crawl over shoes, over socks, that swarm, black and fuzzy, when you kick their hills. The ants in the forests are more red. They swarm too, but you don't have to kick the ant hills. You just have to stay still long enough.

As he walked the forest, the sun barely broke through the treetops. He refused to go out at night, but he was swallowed up by the darkness.

The berries he found in the woods have a strange metallic taste. Their juices stain his mouth red. He keeps eating them anyway. Maybe if he hadn't stopped for a break he never would have gotten addicted.

The forest is deep, so very deep. He walked on, but all he finds is a roofless hut filled with shotgun shells. There are claw marks on the wall, on the ground. He scuffed at them with his shoe. Maybe he'd go find more berries.

That night he couldn't help but yearn for the berries some more. He forgot about the rule carved deep into his soul. He's out late that night, gathering berries. At exactly two am, something knocks him out. He wakes up in his bed the following morning. Don't think about it. Go to sleep.

He tries staying up past two am the following night, only to be knocked out again. Go to sleep. go to sleep. go to sleep.

Just go to sleep.


	18. Chapter 18

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here."-WilliamShakespeare

* * *

The frequency of tornado drills is increasing. The coyotes have been acting strange. It seems the city is being prepared for something far worse than a tornado. Percy doesn't question it and puts his head down.

That was his first mistake.

At night you hear cayotes howling and deer screaming. At night you hear trains in the distance. At night you hear frogs. The worst nights are the ones when there are no sounds at all. It was late in July when this happened, when the corn stalks were knee high and the forest was as thick as ever. The smell of the lake washed over the town, the silence was deafening.

Everyone wakes with a start that night. They walk to their windows. There's no way to not see it and no way to ignore it. Fear creeps up through their bones.

Lake Erie, back on fire. Just as it had hundreds of years before. The flames licked up over the town, the smell of ash and soot covered the citizens. Nobody could do anything but watch.

It was exactly 2 AM. At three, they all fall asleep. Nobody can remember why. When they wake up in the morning, they can't see anywhere near the lake through the haze. Entire houses are engulfed.

New Years Eve eventually hits. As the clock hits midnight, nobody can remember what happened to the lake. Leo can't remember finally visiting those mills. Nico can't remember the mines. Hazel doesn't remember why, but she goes along with the fact that she plants things. Nico hears the mines for the first time on January 1st, Leo hears the mills for the first time. They always know, they always fear, never stay up to 2 AM.

* * *

There is a river that still stinks of ash and soot. The sun sets across it like blood spilling across the floor, and Percy can imagine that it is still burning. When had it burned before? He can't remember, but he can see it in his dreams.

Percy stood at the water's edge, stood there every morning and looked out into that water. He could see them, the shapes moving. He could see their gray silhouettes and their same, dead movements. They were always the same.

Nobody spoke about them, nobody laid their eyes on the water. They got in the same boats, sailed the same waves, never paid what was underneath any mind. They were scared, scared in the deepest parts of their soul. But you need to know something exists to be afraid of it.

Percy stuck his bare foot out, touched the green water with his big toe. The wind stopped the fog deepened, his heart rate intensified.

He took his foot back, put his shoes back on, walked off to school. Maybe another day, maybe another day...


End file.
